


Not Captain, just Steve.

by Snarkyowl



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Author is bad at tags, Captain Marvel - Freeform, Captain Marvel plays a big plot part but she doesn't actually talk or anything I am so sorry, Descriptions of Steve having bad lungs, Everybody lives except Thanos and his goons, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Steve has a lot of breathing issues, Vague injury descriptions, Vision is still gone too, cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 06:36:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20559854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snarkyowl/pseuds/Snarkyowl
Summary: What if Captain America was the soul given for the soul stone, and Steve Rogers (weak, asthmatic Steve Rogers) was the one that returned to fight Thanos? Oh, also, what if Tony didn't die?





	Not Captain, just Steve.

Vormir is desolate.

If ever there was a time for Steve to feel cold and alone, it would be now. He stands, eyes on the mountain ahead, and wonders not for the first time if he will be missed. With so much at stake and so much already gone, he knows there might not be many left to miss Steve Rogers. Captain America, of course, will always be a face or at least a name that people remember. Whether it be for the good Captain America did or for the fact he ended up a war criminal for the sake of his best friend.

Steve knows that if he dies here, no one but his team will miss him. Strangely, he’s at peace with that. 

The climb up the mountain is treacherous and tiresome, but he reaches the top quickly enough. Snow dusts his surroundings, and he watches his breath puff out in clouds into the cool air. Then, a shape appears. It floats, a dark figure breaking apart the dull, rocky landscape. Steve waits, prepared to pull out his shield and fight if he must.   
A face appears from the darkness of what he can now see is a cloak, and Steve feels like the air has been stolen from his lungs. 

“Long time no see,” he manages past his shock, eyes fixed determinedly on the figure before him.   
“Steve Rogers. Captain America. It has been many years.” Steve feels he’s got to be imagining the hint of warmth in the hollow voice. The sight of red skull floating before him should be intimidating, terrifying maybe, but he just feels oddly serene.   
“I’m here for-“  
“The soul stone. I already know, Captain. Come, I will show you the path to what you seek.”

Steve follows behind Red Skull, taking in the details of the tattered cloak. So unlike the uniform he wore so many years ago, and his attitude now is so unlike the head of Hydra that Steve had fought.   
“What happened to you?”  
“This is my punishment, Captain.” Skull informs him almost tiredly, as though he has done this a hundred different times. “You know that I was once greedy with the power of a stone. Now, I am here. I am a guide, I am the guide. The one to show the way to those who seek the soul stone, the one to tell them what it costs.”

Steve pauses at that, finds himself standing feet away from a cliff. Something is carved into the ground, but his eyes are locked only on Skull. “And what does it cost?”  
Skull spends a moment watching the horizon from their place by the cliff, but he does finally turn to face Steve. His face is severe, eyes set solidly onto the captain’s.   
“The soul stone demands a sacrifice. A soul for a soul, an equal transaction. To gain the stone, one must lose what they love most.”

Steve feels something cold settle in the pit of his stomach, a heavy weight bearing down upon his shoulders. Skull stares unwaveringly at him, cloak snapping and flowing in the wind. Steve drops his head, smiling bitterly at the ground until he lifts his head back up.   
“There’s only one thing I can give up,” he says. Red Skull nods.   
“Are you willing to give that up? Give him up?”

Steve moves forward, stands on the edge of the cliff. He gazes down at the stone below, lips pulling into a thin line. His eyes are set determinedly as he turns back to face Red Skull. 

“Do it.”

He falls.

Steve Rogers opens his eyes feeling more tired than he has in a very, very long time. Every part of him aches, every part of him feels frail. Without looking, Steve already knows what he’ll see.   
A shiver wracks his small body, a cough creeping its way out of his lungs. He spends a moment lying there in what seems to be a small pool of water, coughing and shivering, until he can finally find the strength to sit up.   
His first proper deep breath is hoarse, labored in a way he’d almost forgotten. His chest is tight, uncomfortably so, and he squeezes his eyes shut against the pain. 

His shield lays on the ground nearby, and it’s only when his eyes lock onto it that he notices the warmth in his hand. Steve turns his gaze to the soft glow emanating from his closed fist, and he smiles.   
The soul stone pulses, just once, in response. 

Now, to get home. 

-0-

Steve reappears on the platform and immediately discards his helmet in favor of sucking in a long breath. His lungs scream, as does every other part of him, and he falls to his knees without much preamble. Someone asks who he is, someone else calls out his name in panicked concern. He waves a hand, vaguely, in their direction. He just needs a minute to catch his breath.   
Or an inhaler.   
Probably an inhaler, honestly, but he forces his breathing to control itself. He’s fine.   
Definitely fine. 

“What the hell is going on?” There's Tony, voice sharp and demanding in a way Steve has come to learn means he’s afraid. Steve lifts his head to grin at him, wincing at the bright lights he ends up staring right into.   
“I got the soul stone,” he wheezes, holding his hand up in triumph. Tony looks like someone has just shot Pepper and Morgan in front of him.   
“Rogers?” He asks incredulously.   
“Unfortunately.”

Natasha drops down at his side, gentle as she checks him for injuries. His breaths rattle violently, and he grimaces at the noise. This is humiliating, but he got the stone. They’re going to bring everyone home, and that’s worth more than being strong.   
“He needs an inhaler,” she sounds so calm in the face of everyone’s confused concern, and Steve has never been more grateful for her ability to keep her cool. 

Bruce takes the soul stone, and after a little panicked tinkering and searching, Steve is breathing properly again. It’s not the same as when he was pumped full of the serum, when his lungs were healed and functional, he knows that it never will be the same as it was then, but it’s not a fight for every lungful at least.   
Now, he finds himself tiredly slumped in a seat as the raccoon, Bruce, and Tony work on the gauntlet. Or work on how to work on the gauntlet. He’s honestly too tired to pay attention to their scientific details, and instead lets himself focus on the quiet chatter of the rest of his friends. Nervously quiet. There’s a buzzing energy surrounding them that no one can deny, even Steve can feel it through his ever-growing exhaustion.

This version of himself really just wasn’t made for things like this. 

Everything next happens in a blur. The gauntlet being finished, the argument over who should wear it, and finally the snap. The bliss of knowing they’ve succeeded, and then the world explodes. 

Steve blinks his eyes open to ash and dirt in his mouth, in his lungs, and he can’t see through the smoke. There’s a voice, persistent and almost annoyed before finally Tony appears in his line of sight.  
“You getting up or not, Rogers?”  
“Working on it,” he hisses, hefting himself onto his feet with minimal help from Tony. Tony shoves his shield into his hands, eyes flickering with what seems to be doubt.  
“You lose this again and I’m going to kill you myself. Find somewhere safe and--”  
“Tony,” Steve tries for patient and is pleased his voice sounds only a bit agitated, “this is my fight, too.”  
“It was your fight,” Tony corrects hotly, “until you went and got turned into an asthmatic runt. Sit this one out, Cap.”  
“This might be it, Tony. I’m not letting all of you fight the last battle without me.”  
“Cap-”  
“Tony.” He snaps his friend’s name out with as much anger as he can manage, desperate to convey how he feels. 

Tony deflates a bit, scoffs, and then walks away. Apparently he’s reaching his threshold of shit he can deal with, which is just fine by Steve. He’s reaching his threshold, too. His threshold of dealing with everything.

Keeping up is a bit harder now that every breath is a bit whistly, but he does what he can as he and Tony find Thor. Thor regards them both with a seriousness to his eyes Steve hasn’t seen in a long time, too long, and then he glances out towards Thanos. The titan sits, stoic and still, alone. Steve hates him.   
“He hasn’t moved,” Thor murmurs.  
“It’s a trap.” Tony decides.   
Both turn to him as Tony asks, “What next?”  
“We spring the trap.” 

Steve tries to grin like he always did on missions, before everything went to hell for them. Tries to smile away the anxiety and fear and hurt. It doesn’t work, he knows that, but he still tries because that’s the only thing he knows to do. That’s all he’s ever known to do.   
Tony and Thor nod, though, and that’s enough. At least they’re ready to do this.  
Steve tries not to flinch as lightning strikes down onto Thor, replacing his sweats and hoodie with his armor. The braided beard is almost a bit much, but after a brief moment of consideration Steve decides it’s… cool. 

Yeah, cool works.

The battle that follows nearly kills Steve in more ways than one. Mostly, it’s his shitty body. The emotional toll that comes with knowing what this whole fight means tears him apart as he fights, desperate not to lose even as his body gives out more and more with every blow. He can’t hold up against the onslaught, nothing more than a piece of cardboard in comparison to Thanos. Thanos tosses him aside like a piece of garbage, sneering at the insult of such a puny lifeform trying to stand against him.  
Steve’s ribs hurt too much for him to find the time to be insulted. 

Still, he refuses to go down.

Mjolnir lands in his hand and his grin is wild. This is going to be interesting. The power of the hammer gives him a boost of strength he desperately needs, and he swings with confidence. He pulls up every memory of fighting alongside Thor, pulls up every tactic they had used together and puts it to use. He can’t quite throw his shield like he used to, but he’s not terrible either. It’s still pathetic to watch, honestly, but he’s fighting and that’s all that matters. 

Thanos gets one good hit in and Steve is sent careening off to the side, air knocked straight out of him. He gasps, desperate for air and relief from the pain. Thanos looks furious. 

He speaks, but Steve isn’t really paying attention. Over the years it gets harder and harder to really mind what the villains are saying when they decides to monologue during a fight, and honestly Steve has just about heard it all. He knows that whatever Thanos says is probably insane, probably something he hasn’t heard before, but at the end of the day it always comes down to the same thing.  
“I’m going to kill you and probably enjoy it.”

Steve is so tired. 

He straightens up even so, begging his body to keep going for just a little longer. One last fight, one last stand.   
Then, as if answering his pleas, a voice crackles through the building silence. 

“On your left.”

Steve could cry.   
Steve does tear up as a portal opens and Sam soars through, followed by a growing army of hundreds, thousands. Everyone that had been taken from them in the first battle stands with them now, once again prepared to give their lives in the name of saving the Earth. He watches as many of the people on the front lines glance at him in open shock, taking in the bedraggled, tiny form of Captain America. He doesn’t blame them for their horror, but that doesn’t make it sting any less.   
He had been used to those looks, once. 

“Avengers,” he calls out as loudly as his lungs will allow. He calls to Mjolnir, fighting off a satisfied grin as the weapon slams satisfyingly into his hand. “Assemble!”

They rush together as one. 

Thanos gets the gauntlet.   
Then Captain Marvel has it.  
The world explodes into white for a third time, and Steve forgets how to breathe.

Steve never went into this wanting to kill people, but as he watches Thanos and his army turn to dust from his place upon the ground, he smiles. 

Peace, at last. 

-0-

Captain Marvel will need a long time to heal from the injuries she received from using the gauntlet, but she lives.   
Tony introduces Peter to Morgan, and Steve is proud of his friend. Proud of how far he has come.   
Wanda grieves the loss of Vision, and Steve offers his support. She smiles, sad but grateful, as she says that Vision has to know they’ve won.   
Bucky won’t leave Steve’s side, now that things have settled down. He’s dead set on protecting his friend from the world around him, and it’s something so familiar it makes Steve laugh until he’s choking. Bucky doesn’t find it that funny. 

“Now what?” Sam asks as they watch Scott Lang prepare to return the stones to their times.   
“What do you mean?” Steve asks, tucking his hands into his coat to combat the early morning chill around them.   
“I mean with Captain America. What happens next?”

Steve had thought about this, in the time after the battle. He couldn’t carry the mantle anymore, it just wasn’t possible. He was too frail, and even if he could keep the fight going he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He was ready to settle down, maybe try and move on like he’d always told others to.   
“I think I’ll pass the name along.” Steve says after he realizes he’s been silent for too long. “And I know just who I’ll give it to.”

Bucky gives the smallest grin at that, and Steve knows he understands. Sam gives him a blank look.   
“I think it suits you, Sam. What do you think, Buck?”   
“I think it suits him just fine, Stevie.”

Sam’s look of surprise gets a laugh out of both of them, though Bucky’s isn’t quite as boisterous as Steve’s.

As Peter Parker lets Morgan Stark drag him around asking every question she can think of, as Natasha and Clint plan on visiting Clint’s family with Bruce in tow, as Thor decides to head off into space with the Guardians, Steve feels… content. 

All is right in the universe.


End file.
